MD Ripple Button Fails to Open Link

I was making a CSS button and wanted to add the Material Design ripple or wave effect to it. I found an easy script on codepen and it works great by applying the class "ripple" to any element like div, button, image, link and etc. It seems to work great except for some reason it won't actually open the link applied to the button I've made. I'm not a jquery or javascript expert but I'm guessing it has to do with the js. When I remove the "ripple" class from the button the link works fine, but when it's added the button fails to launch the link even if the ripple animation works fine.

Hmmm... I get that you're saying it needs to be one or the other, but not sure I quite understand the your explanation. I can get it to open the link in the original or "same" window by removing the target="_blank" but I was kind of hoping to be able to have the target option without both tabs opening the new link if that's possible.